Текст книги "Thief"
Автор книги: Tarryn Fisher
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
I love you
Delete
If you leave him, I’ll leave her Delete
Can we talk?
Delete
Peter Pan
Delete
I pocketed my phone. Punched a tree. Drove home with bloody knuckles. Love was fucking mean.
The day after I barged into Leah’s, she got a restraining order. If I go anywhere near my daughter, I’ll get arrested. I was almost arrested that night. The cops had me handcuffed when my brother showed up. He spoke quietly to Leah for a few minutes before coming over and taking off my cuffs.
“She’s not going to press charges, little brother, but she’s going to have us file a report, and tomorrow she’s going to get a restraining order.”
“Was that your idea?”
He smirked at me. We didn’t exchange any more words. I just got in my car and drove away. Leah filed a report. She claims that I kicked down the door, threatened her life and woke Estella up in the middle of the night —drunk. She is also back to claiming that I am not Estella’s father. I wonder if she lied to Olivia to torment me. I don’t know what goes on in that woman’s head. Or what went on in my head for so many years. Either way, Leah’s woken the beast. Olivia directs me to an attorney that deals primarily with twisted family issues like mine. She says she’s the best in the business. Her name is Moira Lynda. Ariom – I like that one. After listening to me speak for ten minutes, Moira holds up her hand to stop me. She has a tattoo on her hand, on the skin between her thumb and pointer finger. It looks like a four-leaf clover.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she says. “The woman finds out that you want a divorce and tells you that the child you’ve been raising for six months isn’t yours – and you believe her? Just like that?”
“I didn’t have any reason not to. She didn’t want a divorce. At that point, it would have only benefited her to let me believe Estella was mine.”
“Oh, Caleb.” She puts a hand to her forehead. “Didn’t you see what was happening? You came out and dropped a couple bombs on her, and at some point in that conversation she decided that she didn’t want you, she wanted revenge. And that’s exactly what’s happening.”
I stare out her window at the traffic below and know it’s true. But, why hadn’t I had the sight to see it? If someone other than myself were telling me this story, I’d laugh at their stupidity. Why do humans have such a hard time seeing their own shit clearly?
“She has you by the balls here, Caleb. There is no proof of what happened that night. But, there is proof that for the last three years of that child’s life you haven’t seen her, paid child support or fought for custody. Leah has you at abandonment. And now that she knows that, she’s come back to let you know that Estella is yours, and she has the power.”
God.
“What do I do?”
“You get a court-ordered paternity test. That’s going to take some time. Then we ask for visitation. It’ll be supervised at first, but as long as you comply with the rules and show up to see Estella, we can push for joint custody.”
“I want full.”
“Yeah well, I want to be a swimsuit model. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m chubby and ate a cheeseburger for dinner last night.”
“Okay,” I say. “Do what you need to do. I’m in it. Whatever it is. Is there a way for me to see Estella?”
It’s such a stupid question, but I had to ask. There is no way Leah is going to let me anywhere near my daughter. I have no proof, but I’m already thinking of her as my daughter again. Have I ever stopped?
Moira laughs at me.
“No way. Just sit tight and let me do my thing. We’ll have you back in her life soon enough, but it’s going to be a bit of a fight to get there.”
I nod.
I leave her office and go right to Olivia’s. She’s in shorts and a tank top when I get there, mopping the floors and looking annoyed. I lean against the wall and tell her what Moira said while she works. She’s cleaning with gusto, and when that happens I know she’s trying to distract herself. There is also a bowl of Doritos on the table, and she keeps walking over to it and pushing chips into her mouth. Something’s up, but I know even if I ask, she won’t tell me.
“Do whatever she says,” is all Olivia tells me. There are a few minutes where we don’t speak. Her crunching dominates the room.
“She didn’t seem sorry,” Olivia says, finally. “It was the strangest thing. She just showed up at my office to tell me all of that. She knew I’d tell you. Seems sinister.”
“She’s up to something,” I agree.
“Maybe she’s out of money and she figures she needs to hit you up for child support.”
I shake my head. “Her father built an empire. That company was a small portion of what he was dipping his interest into. Leah doesn’t need money.”
“Then she’s out for revenge, Moira is right. What are you going to do?”
I shrug. “Fight for Estella. Even if she wasn’t mine I’d want to fight for her.”
She stops mopping. A piece of her hair has slipped from the messy pile on her head. She tugs on it then slides it behind her ear.
“Don’t make me love you more,” she says. “My clock is ticking and you’re talking baby.”
I grind my teeth to keep from smiling.
“Let’s make one,” I say, taking a step toward her.
The whites of her eyes explode around her pupils. She hides behind her mop.
“Don’t,” she warns me. She reaches for the bowl of Doritos without taking her eyes from me, and finds it empty.
“Do you think we’d have a boy or a girl?”
“Caleb…”
I take another two steps before she dips her mop in the bucket, and whacks me in the stomach with it.
I stare down at my dripping clothes with my mouth open. She knows what’s coming next because she drops the mop and runs for the living room. I watch her grab onto furniture as she slips and slides across the wet floor. I go after her, but she’s such a cleaning addict she can practically ice skate over wet marble. Amazing. I fall flat on my ass.
I stay there, and she comes out of the kitchen carrying two glass bottles of Coke.
“Peace offering.” She extends one toward me.
I grab the bottle and her arm and pull her down on the floor next to me.
She slides around until we are sitting back to back, leaning on each other, our legs extended outward. Then we talk about nothing. And it feels so damn good.
My daughter was born on March third at 3:33 P.M. She had a shock of red hair that stuck straight up, like those toy trolls from the 90s. I ran my fingers over it, smiling like a goddamn fool. She was beautiful. Leah had convinced me we were having a boy. She’d stroked my face and looked at me like I was her god and practically purred, “Your father produced two sons, and your grandfather had three sons. The men in your family make boys.”
I secretly wanted a daughter. She openly wanted a son. There was a Freudian element to our gender preferences, which I didn’t express to my wife as she bought and decorated the nursery in greens and yellows “just to play it safe.” Though she wasn’t playing it safe when I noticed a teether in the shape of a dump truck appear in the mounds of baby things, or the tiny baseball-inspired onesie. Since I played basketball in college, the baseball selection could only have been a salute to her father, who never missed a Yankees game on TV. Her lying, playing it safe ass was cheating. So, I cheated too. I bought baby girl things and secretly hid them in my closet.
On the day she went into labor, we were planning on going for a walk on the beach. She wasn’t due for another few weeks, and I had read that most first-time pregnancies went past the due date. Leah was climbing into her side of the car when she made a noise in the back of her throat. Her hands were tan; I watched them clutch her stomach, the white fabric of her dress bunching between her clawed fingers.
“I thought they were just Braxton Hicks, but they’re getting closer together. We might want to go to the hospital and save the beach for another day,” she panted, closing her eyes.
She leaned across the center console, started the car and positioned all three air conditioning vents at her face. I’d watched her for a minute; unable to comprehend that this was actually happening. Then I ran inside and grabbed her hospital bag from the bedroom.
I was shocked when the doctor loudly announced “Girl” before tossing her onto her mother’s chest. Not shocked enough to keep the stupid grin off my face. I named her Estella from Great Expectations. That night when I went home to take a shower, I pulled a box from the top of my closet. It had shown up in the mail a month earlier, with neither a note nor a return address attached. I was baffled, until I opened it.
I sliced the tape open with scissors and pulled a lavender blanket out of the box. It was so soft; it felt like cotton between my fingertips.
“Olivia?” I said softly. But, why would she send me a baby gift? I shoved it back in the box before I could overthink things.
I stared at it with a smirk on my face. Had she known Leah desperately wanted a boy and sent a girl gift to spite her? Or had she remembered how much I wanted a daughter? You could never really get a firm grip on Olivia’s motives. Unless you asked. But, then she’d just lie.
I carried the blanket with me to the hospital. When Leah saw me with it, she rolled her eyes. She would have done more than roll her eyes if she’d known where it came from. I wrapped my daughter in Olivia’s blanket and felt euphoric. I am a father. To a little girl. Leah seemed less excited. I chalked it up to the disappointment of the missing boy child. Or maybe she had the baby blues. Or maybe she was jealous. If I’d said the thought that my wife would be jealous of a daughter hadn’t crossed my mind, I’d be lying.
I held Estella a little tighter. I’d already wondered how I would protect her from the ugly things in the world. I never thought I’d be wondering how to protect her from her own mother. But, that’s the way of things, I thought sadly. Leah’s parents were emotional black holes for most of her childhood. She’d get better. I’d help her. Love fixed people.
She was in better spirits when we drove home from the hospital. She laughed and flirted with me. But, when we got to the house and I handed her the baby for a feeding, her back stiffened like she’d been punched between the shoulder blades. My heart dropped so deeply in that moment, I had to turn away to hide my expression. This was not what I had hoped for. This was not what Olivia would have done. For all of her decorated hardness, she was kind and nurturing. With Leah, I always thought there was good in her … somewhere beyond what her parents had done to bring out the bad. Maybe I thought she was capable of more than she really was? But as it was said, if you had faith like a mustard seed, one could move mountains … or soften hardness … or love someone into healing. God. What had I done?
Later that night, I’m going for a jog. When I reach the lobby in my building, my steps die. At first I don’t recognize him. He’s not as put together as the last time I saw him. What is it about men refusing to shave when their hearts are breaking? Fuck. How is this happening? I run a hand along the back of my neck before taking the necessary steps toward him.
“Noah.”
When he turns, he looks surprised. He glances at the elevator, then back at me.
Man, the guy looks ragged. I’ve looked like that a couple times in my life. I almost feel bad for him.
“Can we talk?” he asks.
I look around the lobby and nod. “There’s a bar on the corner. Unless you want to come up to my place.”
He shakes his head. “Bar’s fine.”
“Give me ten. I’ll meet you there.”
He nods and walks out without saying another word. I go back up to my place and call Olivia.
“Noah’s in town,” I say as soon as she picks up. “Did you know?”
There is a long pause before she says, “Yeah.”
“Has he been to see you?”
I feel the tension creep into my shoulders and spread to my hands. I grip the phone a little tighter as I wait for her answer.
“Yeah,” she says again.
“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”
I hear her shifting things around, and I wonder if she’s in court today.
“Did he come to see you?” she whispers into the phone. I can hear her heels clicking as she walks.
Fuck. She is in court, and I’m dropping this on her.
“It’s fine. I’ll call you later, yeah?”
“Caleb-” she starts to say.
I cut her off. “Focus on what you’re doing right now. We’ll talk tonight.”
Her voice is breathy when she says, “Okay.”
I hang up first and head back downstairs. I walk along the crowded sidewalk, barely seeing anything. My mind has latched onto her voice – or maybe her voice has latched on to my mind. Either way I can hear it. And I know something is wrong. I’m not sure I can handle all of this at once. Estella is my priority, but I don’t think I can do this without Olivia. I need her.
Noah is sitting at a small table to the rear of the bar. It’s an upscale place and like everything in this neighborhood, you pay dearly for its services. There are only two other patrons aside from him at this hour; one is old and one is young. I walk past both of them, my eyes adjusting to the dim light. When I pull the chair back and take a seat, the bartender approaches me. I wave him away before he can reach us. Noah is drinking what looks like a scotch, but my only interest is being in full control of my mind.
I wait for him to speak. I really don’t have anything to say to him.
“I told you to stay away from her,” he says.
I lick my lips as I watch the poor son of a bitch. He’s scared. You can see it all over him. I am too.
“That was before you left your wife alone to deal with a stalker.”
He cracks his neck before he looks up. “I’m here now.”
I want to laugh. He’s here now. Like it’s okay to just be part of a marriage part time and show up when you please.
“But, she’s not. That’s what you don’t know about Olivia. She doesn’t need anyone to take care of her. She’s tough. But, if you don’t force yourself in and do it anyway, she moves on. She’s moved on. You fucked up.”
Noah’s eyes flash. “Don’t talk to me about my wife.”
“Why not? Because I know her better? Because when you were gone on one of your damn trips and she needed help, she called me?”
We both stand up at the same time. The bartender sees the commotion and slams his fist on the counter. The bottles around him rattle with the impact.
“Hey! Sit down or get out of here,” he says. He’s a big fucking guy, so we both sit down.
We take a moment to calm down – or to think – or whatever men do when they are compelled to beat the shit out of each other. I’m about to leave when Noah finally speaks up.
“I was once in love with a girl, the same way you’re in love with Olivia,” he says.
“Hold on right there,” I cut him off. “If you were in love with a girl the same way I’m in love with Olivia, you wouldn’t be with Olivia. You’d be with this girl.”
Noah smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “She’s dead.”
I feel like an asshole.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Think about what you’re doing, Caleb. She’s not yours anymore. We made a commitment to each other, and it’s like you said – I fucked up. We need to be able to work on what we have without you showing up every five minutes getting her high on nostalgia.”
Nostalgia? If only he knew. You couldn’t sum Olivia and me up to nostalgia. The day I met her under that tree, it was as if I breathed a spore of her into my lungs. We kept coming back to each other. The distance between our bodies grew wider over the years as we tried to live separately. But that spore took root and grew. And no matter the distance or circumstance, Olivia is something that grows inside of me.
His nostalgia comment pisses me off so much; I decide to go with a low blow.
“So, you’re going to have a baby then…”
The shock that passes through his eyes is enough to tell me I’ve struck a nerve.
I rotate my phone between my fingers as I watch his face and wait for the answer.
“That’s none of your business.”
“She’s my business. Whether you like it or not. And I want to have a baby with her.”
I don’t know why he doesn’t hit me. I would have hit me. Noah is a classy guy. He rubs his hand across his stubble, which hosts mostly gray, and finishes his scotch. His face is wiped of emotion, so I can’t tell what he’s thinking.
“My sister had Cystic Fibrosis,” he says. “I used to go with her to her support groups. That’s where I met Melisa. She had it too. I fell in love with her and then had to watch her die before she had the chance to turn twenty-four. My sister died two years after her. I’ve seen two women that I love – die. I don’t want to bring a child into this world with the chance of passing them the gene. It’s not fair.”
I order a scotch.
I try to rub my headache away. This is becoming more complicated by the minute, and the last thing I want to do is feel sorry for this guy.
“What does Olivia want?” I don’t know why I’m asking him that instead of her, but all I can think about is the way her voice sounded on the phone. What is she going to tell me?
“She wants to save what we have,” he says. “We met last night to talk about things.”
I’ve felt so many forms of pain in my years with Olivia. The worst was when I walked into the hotel room and saw the condom wrapper. It was a jealous, ripping pain. I’d failed her. I’d wanted to protect her, she wanted to self-destruct, and I couldn’t stop her no matter what I did or how hard I loved her. The only thing that came close to that pain was when I showed up at her apartment and found out that she’d left me again.
What I feel now may be worse than that. She’s leaving me, and she has every right to. There is nothing I can do to morally justify her walking away from her marriage for me. Noah is right, but that doesn’t mean I am able to accept it.
The last few months we’ve gotten to know each other as adults, made love as adults, seen into each other as adults. And Olivia can deny it until her snobby face turns blue, but we work together as adults. How can she walk away from me again? We were in love. We are in love.
“I have to talk to her.”
I stand up and he doesn’t try to stop me. Had they planned this together? Noah would come tell me what her choice was? I’d have to deal? She’s obviously forgotten what I’m willing to do to have her. I drop a twenty on the bar and walk out.
One week before my baby came into this world, I received a call from Olivia’s office. Not Olivia. Just her secretary. It was a new secretary, thank God. The one she had when she first started at Bernie’s firm was a psycho. The new girl’s name was Nancy, and in her clipped, professional voice, she informed me that Ms. Kaspen had asked her to make the call. Three weeks ago – she said – a woman named Anfisa Lisov contacted Olivia, claiming to have seen an American news story on CNN in Russian. She said she was the mother to the woman in the picture with Olivia, Johanna Smith. I almost dropped the phone.
She wanted contact with the woman she suspected was her daughter. I collapsed into a chair and listened to Nancy talk. No one knew Leah was adopted. We kept it out of the press; we were careful – so careful not to let that information be released. It would have jeopardized Leah’s testimony, or at least that’s what the partners said. I think it would have jeopardized her mental health. And nothing had changed. Courtney was in an assisted living facility, a vegetable. Her mother was an alcoholic. Leah was balancing a fine line of sanity. And she was having my baby. Whoever this woman was, I couldn’t let her near my wife.
“She said she gave up her baby while working as a prostitute in Kiev when she was sixteen.”
Fuck fuck fuck.
“She is flying to America to meet Johanna,” Nancy said. “Ms. Kaspen tried to deter her, but she was insistent. She wanted me to call and warn you.”
Fuck. Why hadn’t she told me sooner?
“All right. Give me all the contact information you have for her.”
Nancy gave me the hotel and flight times and wished me good luck before hanging up.
Anfisa was flying into New York first and catching a flight a day later to Miami. No doubt she was who she said she was. Who else knew Leah’s real mother was a sixteen-year-old prostitute in Kiev? Her parents certainly wouldn’t have told anyone. When I tried sending an email to Anfisa using the address Nancy gave me, it came back saying the email had a faulty address. The phone number had been disconnected. I Googled Anfisa’s name and the search came back with a picture of a striking woman with short, red hair, cut no longer than my own. She had written and published three books in Russia. I put the titles into Google translator and they came back as: My Scarlet Life, The Blood Soaked Baby and Finding Mother Russia. She hadn’t published a book in four years. I booked a trip to New York right then and there. I would fly out to meet this woman, send her away, and be back in time for my baby’s birth. I had no idea what she wanted to gain out of this reunion, but the fact that Leah came from a wealthy family was at the forefront of my thoughts. She wanted a new story to tell. Reuniting with her daughter would either give her plenty of money to take a writing hiatus or it would give her the story she was looking for. There was no way Leah would want to meet this woman – mother or not. I needed her to focus on being a mother, not have a mental breakdown about her own. I’d take care of it. I’d give her money if I had to. But, then Estella came early.
I’d told Leah that I had a business trip. She was upset, but I arranged for her mother to come for the days I would be away. I didn’t want to leave Estella, but what choice did I have? If I didn’t stop this woman from boarding a plane to Miami, she’d be knocking on our door in a few days.
I packed a small bag, kissed my wife and daughter goodbye and flew to New York to meet Anfisa Lisov, Leah’s birth mother. I could barely sit still on the plane ride. I’d asked Leah on our honeymoon – just a few days after she told me she was adopted – if she’d ever want to meet her birth mother. Before the last word was out of my mouth, she was already shaking her head.
“No way. Not interested.”
“Why not? Aren’t you curious?”
“She was a prostitute. My father was a disgusting pig. What is there to be curious about? To see if I look like her? I don’t want to look like a prostitute.”
Well then…
We hadn’t spoken about it again. Now here I was, doing damage control. I probably drank too much on the plane. When I got off, I booked into my hotel and caught a cab to hers. She was staying at a Hilton close to the airport. Nancy hadn’t known which room she was in. I asked the front desk to call her and tell her that her son-in-law was there to see her. Then I sat in one of the lounge chairs near a fireplace and waited. She came down ten minutes later. I knew it was her by the picture I’d seen of her on the Internet. She was older than in the picture, more worn around the eyes and mouth. Her hair was dyed, no longer naturally red, still spiky and short. I eyed her face, looking for traces of Leah. It might have been my imagination, but when she spoke, I saw my wife in her expressions. I stood up to greet her, and she stared up in my face with complete calm. My little surprise trip hadn’t rattled her at all.
“You are Johanna’s husband? Yes?”
“Yes,” I said, waiting for her to take a seat. “Caleb.”
“Caleb,” she repeated. “I saw you on television. During the trial.” Then-”How did you know I was here?” Her accent was thick, but she spoke English well. She was sitting ramrod straight, her back not touching the chair. She looked more like Russian military than former Russian prostitute.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
She smiled. “We are going to have to answer each other’s questions if we want to get anywhere, no?”
“Her attorney’s office called me,” I said, leaning back in my chair.
“Ah, yes. Ms. Olivia Kaspen.”
God. Her name even sounded good with a Russian accent.
I didn’t acknowledge or deny.
“Should we go to the bar? Order a drink,” she said.
I nodded, tight lipped. I followed her into the hotel bar, where she sat at a table near the front. Only after the bartender brought her vodka and my scotch, did she answer my question.
“I’ve come to meet my daughter.”
“She doesn’t want to meet you,” I said.
She narrowed her eyes and I saw Leah.
“Why not?”
“You gave her up a long time ago. She has a family.”
Anfisa scoffed. “Those people? I didn’t like them when they took her. The man didn’t even like children, I could tell right away.”
“That doesn’t speak very highly of you, giving your baby to people you didn’t even like.”
“I was sixteen years old and I slept with men to survive. I didn’t have much choice.”
“You had a choice to give her to people you liked.”
She looked away. “They offered me the most money.”
I sat my glass down harder than I intended. “She doesn’t want to see you,” I said firmly.
My statement seemed to jar her a little. She slouched some and her eyes darted around the empty bar like she couldn’t hold it together anymore. I wondered if this whole stiff-backed thing was an act.
“I need money. Just enough to write my next book. And I want to write it here.”
That’s what I thought. I took out my checkbook.
“You never come to Florida,” I said. “And you never try to contact her.”
She downed the rest of her vodka like a true Russian.
“I want a hundred thousand dollars.”
“How long will it take you to write the book?” I scrawled her name onto the check and paused to look up at her. She stared at that check with hunger in her eyes.
“A year,” she said, without looking at me. I held my pen above the amount line.
“I’ll divide it by twelve then. I’ll put money in an account every month. You contact her or leave New York, you don’t get your deposit.”
She eyed me with something I didn’t recognize. It could have been contempt. Hate for a situation that left her dependent on me. Annoyance that her blackmail wasn’t working as well as she wanted it to.
“What if I say no?”
I saw Leah in her defiance too.
“She won’t give you money. She will slam the door in your face. Then you’ll get nothing.”
“Well then, son-in-law. Sign my check and be done with it.”
And so I got done with it.
I changed my flight. Went home early. I didn’t ever hear much from Anfisa. I sent her money even after Leah and I separated and got divorced. I didn’t want her presence to hurt Estella, even if she wasn’t mine. When her year was up, she went back to Russia. I ran an Internet search for her once and saw that her book was a huge seller. Leah might hear from her eventually, but I was done with her.
